This blog follows the progress of Milo & Madeline Stiles, born in June 2008 at 25 weeks, 2 days gestation, for their friends and family and anyone else who'd like to know about life with premature kids.
Please visit http://www.altabatessummit.org/nicuedu/fac.html and consider making a donation to assist NICU families at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

We're a few days late with the monthly bear pictures. Sad to say, but we just completely forgot to take them until this morning. On the bright side, they look virtually identical to how they looked 3 days ago. You'll all notice that Milo is developing a nice thick head of hair, just like Dad used to have. And Maddy's hemangio-whos-a-ma-whats-it is becoming smaller and smaller.

As it happens, the babies were both weighed today during their monthly home follow-up with Marguerite, their visiting nurse. Milo weighed it at 17 lbs 2.5 ozs wearing nothing but a nice smile. And, by the way, there's one kid who loves to be naked! His weight gain was pretty impressive; he was 16 lbs 8 ozs last month.

As usual, Maddy out paced Milo on weight gain. She came in at an impressive 19 lbs 4 ozs, despite the fact that she tends to eat much less than Milo. (She was 18 lbs 2 ozs last month.) Both babies are pretty lean on the whole, Milo much more so than Maddy. Although Maddy is definitely active, Milo is a bouncing machine. The little guy is definitely most happy when in motion (a spaz like his old man), while Maddy likes to play with her books and study things over (like Mom).

If you look closely at this picture, you'll notice that Maddy's bottom teeth have poked through and are pretty prominent now. What else is new with the little girl? She's become very mobile. She doesn't exactly crawl, but does a lot of things that look kind of like crawling. She also occasionally pulls herself up onto her feet, and she frequently balances in this odd looking yoga pose where she's bent over with both feet flat on the ground, one hand supporting her, and she's using the other hand to grab something or just wave around. Hard to explain in writing but visually impressive -- I'll try and get a picture at some point.

In other news, the babies were evaluated by a a physical therapist to determine if they are in need of any specialized care for their motor skills. You may recall that we were a bit concerned about Milo in particular due to some of his delays and the fact that he had the grade 3 IVH at birth. Suprise, surprise, neither of the babies were technically in need of PT. Generally, the evaluators look for a 30% delay based on the baby's adjusted age, and both M&M seemed to be well within those parameters. The evaluator still wanted to do a couple monthly sessions just make sure they stay on track and keep making good progress.

Maddy says, "shhhh, pipe down you!"

In other exciting-ish news, the M&M appear to have a couple words in their vocabulary. We've heard Maddy saying the word "up" for the last several weeks, but we had a tough time telling if she meant it. Well, the judges have determined she does. She seems to also say "kit-eeee" whenever Mouse (our white cat) walks near her, so we'll credit her with that too. She may also have "Ma" and "Da-da" but the jury is still out. For his part, Milo seems to have "Da-da" and "Ma-ma-ma" down. The rest is scat singing for him.

As noted above, both babies are eating solid food well now. In fact, they had their first sample of pizza (tiny, tiny pieces) and they appeared to love it. Milo also tried out Aunt Erin's cowboy caviar and gave it a big thumbs-up. Before I get any lectures, that's not their standard eats. They get the typical three meals a day of organic vegetables (of all colors), fruit (which they love), cereal and yogurt (love even more), and various meats (which they kinda' like).

The next update will probably come after our return from our trip to Connecticut and Boston. Should be wild times in the friendly skies!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Good lighting, crazy expression, and a rubber ducky placed gingerly in nature's vase. Viola! The perfect baby picture. The only thing missing are the fangs.

My old buddy Brandon and his wife Erin were in town for a visit during the first week of July. I've known Brandon since I was only a couple years older than M&M are now. Great to catch up and introduce the kids.